


Confession

by cherryjam (blueskull)



Series: Sea's WoL Challenge [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Hyur Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Stream of Consciousness, context: takes place the night before finding the last lightwarden, written for seaswolchallenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskull/pseuds/cherryjam
Summary: Even the colour is the same.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Series: Sea's WoL Challenge [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768804
Kudos: 4





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

> Now has a companion fic called [Admission](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024146).

He should probably leave. There’s no reason for him to be here anymore...

If he’s truthful, there probably wasn’t ever one. Nothing that doesn’t fall in the line of simply ego-stroking, ignorant idleness.

And yet something brings him pause as he gazes down at the vaunted Warrior of Light. She’s fallen asleep after conversing with him. Or, more accurately, fallen asleep _again_ from that -- unpleasant dream she’d been subjected to earlier. Perhaps that was a part of the reason he’d come here. He can’t let himself say it was the only reason.

Arianna shifts once, rolling to the side; her dark, curly hair spills across the pillow as she fidgets her legs beneath the covers. Emet-Selch’s head tilts slightly.

“You _are_ asleep, aren’t you?” He has no idea why he’s talking --

To Arianna when she’s asleep. And she _is_. A faint tapping of the link between them is all he needs to know she is placid and at ease, perhaps having one of those _dreams_ of hers again. The ones she so likes to write about.

She has not the experience nor the know-how to peer at his emotions through the bond. In fact, she wouldn’t feel them unless he _let_ her.

And he doesn’t.

\-- There’s no need for her to have to deal with that. Her mind is tumultuous enough as it is.

The Ascian’s shoulders hunch further as he stares down at her, his arms crossing over his chest. Normally an exceptionally _wordy_ man, for some reason he cannot for the life of him discern precisely what it is he wishes to convey.

The only thing he’s clear on is that it is to _her_. About her?

His brows furrow, lips curling downwards in vague annoyance. Still the strange emotions assail him, making him grow uncomfortable yet again. For all her timidity, she is so strangely _good_ at making him feel _uneasy_.

That odd sensation, starting with when she’d first ever offered him a cup of tea --

It makes him uncomfortable because it reminds him of something, of some _one,_ he remembers these feelings from ages and ages ago, things he’d thought he’d forgotten...

Though really, he hasn’t, not when he relives them in his dreams, and even wrote them in one of those books of hers....

_Persephone._

Even the colour -- 

It’s the same. Emet-Selch can’t tell himself it’s _not_ anymore, because -- the similarities are far too many for him to lie any longer. The hue, her mannerisms and fancies are _just like_...

Well, not entirely, really, he supposes, she’s not _exactly_ the same. Not in height or even her disposition, though it has been delightful to drag it out of that previously shell-shocked and unresponsive woman. Annoyingly, he finds her charming even in this way -- why else would he spend so much time with her, after all?

“Hah...hahah...” The laugh is utterly flat and devoid of amusement. With a world-weary sigh, he turns his back to her, though he does not leave. Instead, he allows himself to sink to the ground, tossing his head back to rest against the bed frame. He throws one arm across his face -- slowly drags it back to press his gloved palm to his forehead.

“Unfortunately, I seem to have grown _soft_ , Persephone...though I suppose that is not your name anymore, is it...”

There’s a strange sensation of -- a weight leaving him, as if he finally feels, perhaps, just a little bit lighter. But it’s quickly overtaken again by an even heftier one.

\-- This is nothing he can allow himself to have, after all.


End file.
